Friday, August 31, 2018

A Creative, Charismatic Guy, Given Way Too Much Power

He was also give way too much, essentially free, money as well (along with the rest of that industry), but that is, of course, what made him powerful. And also quite inevitably, being human, he was also subject to all of our propensities for being seduced into the many siren's songs that such power can put before you; the various weaknesses such as vanity, and pleasure seeking, excess in general, and just wanting to shake things up because you can.

What is especially interesting for me here, though, is just how far reaching, and complex, the waves of effect can be when somebody like this actually gets his excessive cake, and then OD's on munching out on it. I mean seriously? Changing the landscape of entire oil economies? Wrecking water tables all over the place? And now putting the underlying emphasis on just how fragile that new wave of development may be now; precisely because so few of these companies actually make any money. Wow. How can you not be in, at least some, bit of awe of this guy? Even as you also ponder the terrible costs that will yet have to be paid for the damage already done, and who knows how much more to come.

The bottom line, though, as always, is that this just serves to illustrate how we can no longer tolerate a system that would give this much power to people, just as subject to mistakes, and very poor choices, as the rest of us are. We simply cannot let a few wreck this kind of damage just because they're good at selling us on something; even if it does provide what seems like desirable, immediate gain.

If we didn't have to be in such an all out rush all of the time to have to make decisions, because electrified competition demands that this be so, maybe we could, individually, and collectively, take our time a good deal more in asking deeper questions about any of the important actions our, now greatly expanded abilities, allow us to do. And Gosh oh golly. What a concept. Actually taking your time and trying, with all due diligence, to see the full scope of effect of what the new thing you may want to try and do will have. To just try and think it through more completely.

Now wouldn't that be a real change.

How America's 'most reckless' billionaire created the fracking boom

See Also:

LOOKING A LITTLE BIT OFF COLOR

Haunting Images Of The World's Most Polluted Places

Wired

Photographer Edward Burtynsky and filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier's "Anthropocene Project" chronicles mankind's permanent alteration of the natural world.